Friday, March 30, 2012

“I’m exceedingly disappointed,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), told The Huffington Post. “He refused to meet with any members of the opposition. He refused to speak out in any real way against forced abortions. He refused to speak out against the human trafficking that is sponsored by the regime. He refused to condemn the human rights violations in any meaningful way. And it cannot be said that he’s not aware of those issues ... He is aware of it because a lot of us have made him aware of it.”

Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)

By Vicky Short30 March 2012

Yesterday’s general strike against new labour laws imposed by the right-wing Popular Party government was backed by millions.

The two main union federations, the Socialist Party (PSOE)-aligned General Workers Union (Union General de Trabajadores, UGT), and the Communist Party (PCE)-led Workers Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CC.OO) estimated that the stoppages were supported by 77-80 percent of the workforce. Many more people, unemployed, school children, housewives and students used it as a vehicle to protest government cuts and austerity measures.

Mass stoppages took place in industry, transport and services. The walkout hit road, rail and air service with barely any domestic or European flights in operation.

Nissan, Seat, Ficosa and Valeo and the petrochemical factory in Tarragona were shut down as well as Yamaha, Derbi and Panrico. The PSA Peugeot Citroën plant was opened, but with about 10 percent attendance. In Navarre, factories such as Volkswagen, FCC Logística, Human Koxka, TRW, Kybse and Dana were paralysed. Factories near Madrid closed down. Industry, ports and shipyards in Galicia were idle.

Although the trade unions had agreed minimum transport services of 30 and 35 percent, huge queues formed in all cities. The unions report that 91 percent supported the strike on the railways.

Around 30 percent of bank workers struck. The big stores such as El Corte Ingles opened under heavy police protection, but there were few customers. Refuse collection stopped the night before and though a minimum service was agreed, most containers remained full.

Minimum services allowed hospitals to function, but in many hospitals there were incidents between strikers and those who scabbed. Public buildings were under heavy police guard.

The stoppage was massive at universities all over the country. Libraries were closed. Calling for unity with workers, students marched with banners that read, “Education Rest In Peace”. Masses of workers and young people filled the streets, halting traffic in main streets and roads.

In total, 111 demonstrations and rallies took place around the country.

The police were out in force. Police attacks on strikers led to dozens of arrests and injuries.

Trade union spokesmen referred to “situations of intimidation”, “police provocation” and “unjustified aggression”. The UGT’s 64-year-old Secretary of Training and Employment, Juan Jose Couso Ferreira, had to receive medical attention for wounds to his eyebrow, nose and arm. A cameraman was arrested as early as 6 a.m. An attack on a man in an electric wheelchair was filmed.

The new changes in the labour law go much further and deeper than those agreed between the PSOE government and the trade unions in September 2010, opposition to which also forced the unions to call a general strike. Many of these changes are already in operation, as the government unilaterally implemented them in February by decree.

All workers will eventually have to sign a contract which will limit severance pay to just 33 days for each year worked, with a limit of 24 months for unfair dismissal, as opposed to the present 45 days of severance pay, with a limit of 42 months. If layoffs are “financially driven”, companies only need to pay 20 days’ wages.

Companies are given the freedom to reduce working hours without having to apply to the Employment Authority and to reduce the number of employees depending on profitability, as well as redeploy them to other towns. People who are registered in unemployment offices and receiving benefits will be forced to “carry out services of general interest in the benefit of the community” through agreements with the Public Administrations.

Young people will be forced onto cheap labour “training” contracts. After they have finished one, they can be forced onto another, and so on, until the age of 30.

The law undermines collective national agreements and allows agreements by company. Congress has already approved the new labour law, and the Senate voted yesterday in the middle of the general strike.

Today’s budget announcement is expected to bring in further and much wider austerity measures.

Despite the massive response and militancy of Spanish workers, the unions are insistent that all they want are modifications and concessions from the government that would aid them in imposing the measures on the working class.

UGT’s leader Cándido Méndez said, “We are convening the strike because we have to connect it with the parliamentary debate which is now reaching the high point of amendments. The general strike is not an end in itself, it is a means to correct.”

CC.OO’s leader Ignacio Fernández Toxo defended the unions’ record of collaboration in the attacks on Spanish workers. “The country was in need of more compromises, but quite honestly I don’t think that anyone can accuse the UGT and CC.OO that we have not made considerable efforts”, he said.

Toxo elaborated on the unions’ record of betrayal: “In the midst of the longest and deepest crisis that Spanish society has known in decades, we have signed three agreements that I think have had an insufficient appreciation. We have repeated in January the salaries (agreement) of 2010, correcting its contents while it was still in force. And also we made an agreement on pensions the likes of which does not exist in Europe. We have put forward proposals in 2011 on the eve of the election such as progressive fiscal reform ...”

Méndez added, “If we haven’t reached more agreements it is because they haven’t let us. We have had three agreements during the crisis and two strikes; three to two.”

At a press conference yesterday, he stated, “We have to look for a compromise with the government so that we can row in the same direction.”

Toxo added, “They have forced a general strike. I hope that this will be sufficient.”

The PSOE Parliamentary Group issued a statement supposedly in support of the strike, but focusing on a denunciation of the PP for not negotiating with the unions.

Minister of Labour Fátima Báñez replied that the government was open to proposals as far as the improvement and amplifications of the legislation was concerned, but the reforms were not going to be changed, strike or no strike. Asked about the brutal actions of the police, she said the government was elected to guarantee the right of those who want to strike and those who want to work.

The Madrid government delegate, Cristina Cifuentes, declared that “there are three groups with about one thousand people who are intending to mount riots in the centre of the city. They are being controlled by the police.”

The PP has received a big setback in two regional elections this week, and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has been accused by the European Union of going too softly on the cuts in response. Rajoy had hoped that a big majority, particularly in Andalucia (the biggest region in Spain), would have given him the clout to say that his next plan of drastic austerity measures had the backing of the country. But despite the setback, he is under orders to step up the attacks on workers. The EU will be sending officials in April to make sure he does not back pedal in the wake of the strike.

In industrial action in Athens the same day, thousands of protesters, including doctors, nurses and administrative staff marched on the Greek parliament.

Granma left fielder Alfredo Despaigne hit two home runs today, giving him 33 on the season and tying the record for the most home runs ever in a Serie Nacional season, set last year by Cespedes and Cienfuegos first baseman Jose Abreu.

Despaigne, 25, has nine more games left in the regular season to reclaim the single-season home run mark for himself, which he did in 2008-09 when he hit 32 home runs and won his first of two consecutive MVP awards. Despaigne entered today hitting .345/.496/.732 in 79 games, ranked second in OBP and slugging. Despaigne could challenge for his third MVP, though Abreu, the 25-year-old reigning MVP, entered the day hitting .391/.538/.782 with 26 homers in 75 games. A righthanded hitter, Despaigne is only 5-foot-9 but he is thickly built and has been a standout player in Cuba since his junior national team days, playing for the Cubans at the 2008 Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic, among other tournaments.

Still entering the prime of his career, Despaigne has already established a track record as one of Cuba's most accomplished hitters. Pretty soon he could have the home run record all to himself.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Havana, Mar 28 (Prensa Latina) Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro, and Pope Benedict XVI met in this capital on Wednesday, shortly after a mass officiated by the Supreme Pontiff to hundreds of thousands of people.

According to The Vatican´s spokesman, Federico Lombardi, the 30-minute meeting held at the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana was carried out very cordially.

In a statement to reporters at the National Hotel´s press room, Lombardi said that they talked about the current world situation, as well as topics related to science, culture, and technology.

Benedict XVI and Fidel Castro also talked about the Church liturgy and its changes in the last decades, added the spokesman.

According to Lombardi, the Pope also expressed his joy for being in Cuba and expressed gratitude for the welcome, while Fidel Castro showed interest for the work of a Supreme Pontiff.

The Cuban leader met with John Paul II fourteen years ago, in which was then the first visit of a Holy Father to Cuba.

Tuesday, Fidel Castro had predicted the possibility of a meeting with Benedict XVI, who concludes today a three-day apostolic trip in the framework of the Jubilee Year for the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the image of the Virgin of La Caridad del Cobre, the patron saint of Cuba.

¿I will be a great pleasure to greet and meet with Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday, as I did with John Paul II, said Fidel in his most recent reflections.

The head of State of the Vatican City will return to Rome this afternoon, after accomplishing a busy agenda in the Caribbean country.

Havana, Mar 28 (Prensa Latina) Fidel Castro will meet with Pope Benedict XVI in this capital on Wednesday, on the Supreme Pontiff's last day in Cuba.

In his recent reflection entitled "The Hard Times of Humanity", the leader of the Cuban Revolution talked about the meeting with the head of State of the Vatican.

"I will happily greet His Excellency Pope Benedict XVI, as I did with Pope John Paul II in 1998, a man for whom contact with children and the humble raised feelings of affection," the revolutionary leader wrote.

Fidel Castro said he decided to ask him for some minutes on his very busy schedule, after knowing from Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez about the Holy Father's willingness to materialize that meeting.

On Monday, the first day of the Pope's activities in Cuba, the Vatican's spokesman, Federico Lombardi, told reporters about His Holiness' wish to meet with Fidel Castro.

On Tuesday, Benedict XVI was welcomed at Havana's Palace of the Revolution by President Raul Castro.

On Wednesday, the Pope will wrap up his visit to Cuba, where he will officiate an open-air mass at Havana's Jose Marti Revolution Square.

JG: Very well said by Marino Murillo, Vice-President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba. It would be political suicide for the Cuban people to go back to the dog-eat-dog capitalism of the United States. Cuba does not want to re-import masses of begging children and thousands of people sleeping under bridges and highways overpasses.

The Cuban cigar industry typically unveils its trio of Edición Limitada cigars at the annual Habanos Festival. This year, however, it only released one, and with little information. We spoke with executives from Habanos S.A. to get details about the cigars, which we estimate will reach retail shops around the world beginning in late September.

Once again there will be three Edición Limitadas for 2012: the Partagás Serie C No. 3 EL, H. Upmann Robusto EL and Montecristo 520 EL. All three sizes are parejos, or straight-sided cigars, and each is rather thick, showing the trend for fatter cigars has spread out of the non-Cuban cigar world and into Cuba proper.

The H. Upmann is a standard Cuban robusto, measuring 4 7/8 inches long by 50 ring gauge. The Partagás is a reincarnation of an old size known as the C No. 3. It measures 5 1/2 inches long by 48 ring gauge. The Montecristo 520—named for the 520th anniversary of the discovery of tobacco in Cuba—is a vitola called Maravillas No. 3. It has a 55 ring gauge (the only straight-sided cigar in the current Cuban portfolio with a 55 ring, save for the Romeo y Julieta Wide Churchill) and measures 6 1/8 inches long. We smoked a sample of the cigar during the Wednesday night dinner, and found it big and robust, and exceptionally bold, but young. It’s a cigar that should benefit from aging.

Cuba has put quite a bit of emphasis on fat versions of the Montecristo brand for recent Edición Limitadas—in 2008 it released the 54 ring gauge Montecristo Sublimes EL, and in 2010 there was the 52 ring Montecristo Grand Edmundo EL.

Expect the cigars to be on the market later in 2012. You’ll read the first blind tastings on the cigars in Cigar Insider.

To see better this graphic, it is better to download it to your PC and click on the appropriate button that enlarges it. Ubuntu Linux has the appropriate software that is TOTALLY FREE because of the hundreds of computer programmers that to do not embrace the greed of capitalist Windows software.

North Dakota grown beans are being bought by Cuba, reports in CNBC, West Star Food President, Pat Wallesen. They are being bagged and shipped to the Caribbean island through the port of Corpus Christi, Texas.

Imagine: if the Yankee imperialists were to lift the world-wide condemned embargo/blockade against the people of Cuba, the island would buy from and sell to the U.S. thousands of products.

It would be a win-win proposition for both countries.

But the hatred of the U.S. capitalists, under the leadership of Barack Obama, is just as strong today as it was under George W. Bush.

Lets have real change in November and elect someone who will get rid of this genocidal embargo.

Connie Marrero, age 100, was a major league all-star who struck out the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. He returned to his native Cuba after his career ended. He's now the oldest living ex-major leaguer and is finally getting a pension payment. He's shown here at his apartment in Havana.

The 1952 baseball card of Connie Marrero. He had an 11-8 record that year with a 2.88 ERA for the Washington Senators. The year before, he was on the American League All-Star team.

Friday, March 23, 2012

(Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Friday communism no longer works in Cuba and the Church was ready to help the island find new ways of moving forward without "trauma."

Speaking on the plane taking him from Rome for a trip to Mexico and Cuba, the pope told reporters: "Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality."

Responding to a question about his visit to the island, a communist bastion 90 miles off the coast of the United States for more than 50 years, Benedict added: "New models must be found with patience and in a constructive way....we want to help."

Benedict, who is due to arrive in Cuba on Monday after a three-day visit to Mexico, called for freedom of conscience and freedom of religion on the island.

(This story corrects in 3rd paragraph to more than 50 years instead of more than 60 years)

Havana, Mar 22 (Prensa Latina) The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, warned on the severity of U.S. policies that threaten to lead the human race to disaster. In his latest Reflection, "The Roads Leading to Disaster," the Cuban leader referred to U.S. and Israel threats on an attack on a plant that produces enriched uranium in Iran, as well as the selective elimination of the most eminent scientists from that country.

Let's imagine the U.S. troops, stated Fidel Castro, launching monstrous bombs capable of penetrating 60 meters of concrete on industrial facilities. Such an adventure had never been conceived.

For the Cuban leader, we do not need another word to understand the reality of such a policy, "that way will lead our specie inexorably to disaster. If we do not learn to understand that, we will never learn to survive."

Fidel Castro stated that Iran, accused of producing enriched uranium used as energy fuel or a medical component, does not have nuclear weapons.

Dozens of countries use enriched uranium as an energy source, but this could not be used in the production of a nuclear weapon without a previous and complex purification process, the revolutionary leader added.

The Cuban leader denounced, however, that Israel, with U.S. support and cooperation, manufactured nuclear armament without informing or giving an explanation to anybody, and even without recognizing the possession of those weapons, has hundreds of them.

The international policy in that complex and dangerous region of the world has focused on that crucial issue, where most of the fuel that moves the world economy is produced and supplied, he noted.

According to Fidel Castro, the 40 million USD that U.S. President Barack Obama promised to collect for his electoral campaign in a few weeks will only be used to prove that his country's money is much devalued.

Referring to the elections in the United States, the leader of the Revolution said that nobody thinks that the Democratic candidate is better or worse than his Republican adversaries: Mitt Rommey or Rick Santorum.

In his Reflection, Fidel Castro reproduced an article that reveals the existence of the largest conventional bomb, the 13.6-ton "bunker-buster", described by a U.S. Air Force general as "grandiose" for a military attack on Iran.

The measure was prompted by gasoline prices that are nearing $4 a gallon and the commission's refusal to obey a Wall Street reform law that required trading limits to be in place by Jan. 17, 2011.

"Millions of American consumers are hurting as a result of excessive speculation on the oil futures market and the future of our economy hangs in the balance. The time to act is now," Sanders said at a news conference in the Capitol.

"Oil supply is up and demand is down so there is no logical reason why gas prices continue to soar," added Cardin. "We need to take decisive action now to stop the speculators who are driving up prices for all of us at a time we can least afford it."

"The CFTC has the power to stop this excessive speculation, but has been dragging its feet. This legislation would direct the CFTC to take immediate action to reduce unnecessary speculation and give families some relief at the pump," Klobuchar said.

"In Minnesota gas prices are averaging nearly $3.74 a gallon for regular and there's plenty of agreement that speculators are driving up the price-accounting for about 56 cents extra per gallon," said Sen. Franken. "The Commodities Futures Trading Commission needs to stop dragging its feet and set position limits on speculators like it was mandated to do in the Wall Street Reform law. The legislation we are introducing today would force the Commission to take action which would help Minnesotans at the pump. It's the right thing to do."

The recent surge in crude oil prices is widely attributed to speculators who control more than 80 percent of the energy futures market, a figure that has more than doubled over the past decade.

Higher oil prices have in turn pushed up the price of gasoline, which stood at a national average of $3.84 per gallon on Tuesday. Supplies are greater today than three years ago, when the national average price for a gallon of gasoline was just $1.94. The demand for oil in the U.S. is lower today than it was in April of 1997.

There is broad consensus that speculators are to blame. Exxon Mobil, the American Trucking Association, Delta Airlines, the Petroleum Marketers Association of America and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis all say excessive oil speculation significantly increases oil and gasoline prices. Citing a recent report from the investment bank Goldman Sachs, a Feb. 27, 2012, article in Forbes said excessive oil speculation adds $.56 to the price of a gallon of gas.

The legislation calling for emergency action is identical to bipartisan legislation that overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 402-19 during a similar crisis in 2008.

------

JG: The XXI Century Hamlet that we currently have in the White House's Oval Office seems paralyzed with fears that the greedy Wall Street capitalist oil speculators may order his assassination.

His soliloquy: "To attack or not to attack Iran with my mercenary Zionists? That is the question!"

In 1979, the U.S. State Department began designating countries that “have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism” as State Sponsors of Terrorism. Today, four countries are on the list: Iran, Syria, Sudan and … Cuba.

Seriously, Cuba?

Countries not on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list include: Yemen, Lebanon, Pakistan, North Korea (the Department of State removed North Korea from the list in 2008) and Libya (removed from the list in 2006).

Cuba was added to the list in 1982, due to its support for communist rebels in Africa and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.

Having just returned from an extensive research trip to Cuba, where we met with embassy officials from key European and Latin American countries, the U.S. Interests Section and Cuban government officials, we have concluded that it is simply illogical and counterproductive to keep Cuba on the list. There is little, if any, evidence that Cuba provides support for terrorism, and the evidence further shows that they haven’t for more than 20 years.

After the Cold War ended, many in the intelligence community concluded that Cuba was no longer a national security threat to the United States. The 2008 U.S. State Country Report on Terrorism stated that Cuba “no longer actively supports armed struggles in Latin America and other parts of the world.” The same report further states, “The United States has no evidence of terrorist-related money laundering or terrorist financing activities in Cuba.”

The 2009 report stated: “There was no evidence of direct financial support for terrorist organizations by Cuba in 2009.” The 2010 State Department report stated: “The Cuban government and official media publicly condemned acts of terrorism by al-Qa’ida and affiliates.”

Does keeping Cuba on the list make any sense, more than two decades after the events cited in the original listing?

So why does the State Department retain Cuba on the list?

The rationale seems to be that “the Cuban government continued to provide safe haven to several terrorists,” according to the 2008 Country Report on Terrorism.

Let’s look at the evidence.

First, the State Department alleges that Cuba offers safe haven to terrorists from Spain.

The fact is that a handful of former members of the Basque Homeland and Freedom organization — more commonly known by the acronym ETA for the Spanish translation — live in Cuba in accordance with a decades-old bilateral agreement with the Spanish government. Spain has stated public appreciation for Cuba’s willingness to host these individuals and has maintained that this enhances their ability to deal more effectively with the group. The Spanish police even maintain a small presence in Cuba.

Second, the State Department alleges that members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) Columbian rebel groups maintain a presence in Cuba. The fact is, Cuba hasn’t supported ELN for more than 20 years. Moreover, the Colombian government publicly stated that Cuba has played a useful role in facilitating peace talks with the rebels, according to a 2007 Congressional Research Service report.

The 2010 State Department report itself echoes the 2009 report, that “there was no evidence of direct financial or ongoing material support” for FARC.

In addition to the lack of evidence to support the listing, there are convincing reasons why Cuba should be removed:

Cuban presence on the list damages U.S. credibility with almost all of our key allies and puts us at odds with every country in Latin America, who view the listing as capricious and politically motivated.

It impedes our ability to work with allies to facilitate contacts with rebel groups, such as FARC, that are aimed at reconciliation.

U.S. policy cripples efforts to cooperate with Cuba on important American national security issues, including transnational human, drug and weapons smuggling, as well as environmental disasters.

American policy hurts our businesses and workers by providing a rationale to continue the job-killing embargo on trade with Cuba.

Most of all, retaining Cuba on the State Department’s list undermines American efforts in the broader — and very real — fight against terrorism.

For all these reasons, it is time for the United States to end our counterproductive and hypocritical policy and remove Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list.

Adams is president of Guardian Six Consulting LLC, a national security consulting firm. Jones is a federal lobbyist in Washington.

If you are a member of the working class and you are considering voting for for Obama or Romney, you will be voting against your best self-interests.

Look for alternatives, write-in NOTA or stay home and don't vote. Do not reward ineptitude and mediocrity.

A vote for the two POTUS candidates of the two branches of The Capitalist Party, may make you feel good, but this election is not about selecting the horse that has the best chance of winning the race.

Obama and Romney are part of the problem, not part of the solution. This country is going steadily downhill.

“The key to the future lies in the international unity of the working class”

On Tuesday, Jerry White, the Socialist Equality Party candidate for President of the United States, addressed a well-attended meeting of students, workers, and young people in Kingston, Ontario. White emphasized the need to unite the working class internationally against declining wages, austerity, and endless war enforced by the ruling elite of each country.

Those in attendance responded enthusiastically and White’s remarks were followed by a discussion period that covered a wide range of international political issues. Informal discussion continued long after the official end of the meeting, with many attendees expressing interest in the upcoming events.

In addressing a Canadian audience, White made clear that the US SEP’s election program was a direct challenge to the nationalist, pro-capitalist policies of the trade union bureaucracies and the ‘left’ parties of the political establishment.

“First, we insist that the key to the future lies in the international unity of the working class. The interests of the working class cannot be defended on the basis of a national program. In every country, working people are oppressed by transnational corporations that scour the globe for profits. The financial and industrial corporate conglomerates demand the lowering of wages and the elimination of social benefits essential for a decent standard of living. In Europe, the international banks are transforming Greece into a third world country, reducing living standards by as much as 50 percent.

“Regardless of nationality, ethnic background, religion or language, workers and youth throughout the world have the same interests. Therefore, the working class requires an international strategy. Workers in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Canada are the allies of US workers in the global struggle against capitalism.

“In every part of the world, the working class is facing universal demands for austerity and drastic wage-cutting, the erosion of basic democratic rights and the growth of ever more authoritarian forms of political rule, militarism and the threat of world war. At the same time a corporate and financial elite is amassing vast fortunes through the looting of society and the systematic destruction of working class living standards. The SEP sees the forging of the unity of the North American working class as a critical component of an international socialist strategy.”

White pointed to the long history of joint struggle by the working class in Canada and the US, from the struggles led by the Knights of Labor in the 1880s to the revolutionary syndicalism of the Industrial Workers of the World in early 20th Century, to the sit down strikes of the United Auto Workers on both sides of the border in the 1930s and 1940. He highlighted the role of socialists in forging this international unity and leading these mass struggles.

While the ruling classes in both countries, chastened by the Russian Revolution and the powerful upsurge of the working class following WWII responded to the class struggle by making social concessions, in Canada to a far greater extent that the US, the working class movement remained in one form or another under the domination of pro-capitalist trade unions and social democratic parties like the NDP. They insisted that the lessons of the Great Depression and the world war had been learned, that the capitalist system could be reformed and there would never be a repeat of the previous social catastrophe.

The current breakdown of world capitalism and the ongoing assault upon the social gains won in the post-war period has proven this national-reformist perspective to be entirely bankrupt. White pointed to the example of the Caterpillar workers in London, Ontario, for whom the nationalist perspective of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) bureaucracy led to a bitter defeat: “On January 1, the multi-billion dollar transnational corporation locked out 465 workers who build locomotive engines after they rejected the company’s concessions demands, including for a 55 percent wage cut that would have reduced pay from C$35 an hour to C$16.50.

“After three weeks, the company announced it was closing the plant. Despite overwhelming support for a struggle, the CAW accepted the closing. Throughout the six-week struggle, CAW officials, paralleling the nationalism of their counterparts in America, presented the struggle as one of defending the ‘Canadian way of life’ against an American company. This was aimed at blocking any common struggle by Canadian and US workers and bolstering illusions that appeals to the Conservative Harper would protect workers.”

“For the last three decades, the UAW in the US has collaborated with the corporations to sharply reduce labor costs, including at Caterpillar where the union betrayed a 17-month strike at the company’s Illinois plants in 1994-95. Caterpillar is shifting production [from the London, Ontario] to Muncie, Indiana, which pays workers $12 to $14.50 an hour, less than half the pay for most workers at the plant being closed in Ontario.”

“In order to attract investment every government around the world is to cut labor costs, and provide whatever tax cuts and deregulation is demanded by big business. It is the demands of world capitalism, not any claims by the unions or NDP about ‘protecting the Canadian way of life’ that is dictating this race to the bottom.”

Questions and discussion after White’s remarks included the SEP’s attitude towards the ‘humanitarian’ wars and aggressive foreign policy of US imperialism and its allies, the implications of a socially-owned and scientifically planned economy for the environment, and the reception of the SEP’s program among rural workers in the US (popularly portrayed by Canadian nationalists as ignorant and reactionary).

Lee Parsons, a long-time member of the Socialist Equality Party (Canada) pointed to the parallels between the assault on the working class in the US and the policies of the Harper Conservative and the Ontario Liberal government. In response to a question on Quebecois nationalism, Parsons highlighted the role of the Quebec ‘sovereignty’ or independence movement in dividing French and English-speaking workers and harnessing the militancy of the Quebecois working class to a section of the capitalist elite.

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